5 Reasons Google Doesn't Like Your Website

September 24th, 2010 by Jeff McEachron Categories: Branding, Internet Marketing, Marketing, News, Social Media Marketing Tags: Branding, henry russell bruce, hrb, Internet Marketing, News & Press Releases

Unlike most companies during a recession, HRB is focusing on teaching rather than selling.

As evidence of this, I recently discussed the importance of Internet marketing with local business professionals at a seminar held at the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce.

The goal of the seminar was to help professionals grow their businesses by generating increased website traffic through improved search engine rankings, enhanced website content, business keywords and an inbound link strategy. I encouraged attendees to reconsider their methods for linking information to a website and the role that social media marketing plays in today’s economy.

Here are some testimonials straight from the mouths of the seminar attendees:

– “The Google® seminar was great! The approach he used to address a familiar topic was extremely helpful and I will definitely put to use his tips! The seminar was definitely worth the time over the lunch hours. I encourage others to check out these seminars.”

– “I was impressed that we received practical advice on what we could do right now to rectify any issues on our website. We walked out of the seminar with several to-do’s that were reasonable and attainable.”

– “I appreciated that it wasn’t a sales pitch. The speaker understood the audience and targeted his presentation to ways small businesses can be successful on their own.”

Not only did we have a great turnout, but we learned that many of our industry colleagues are seeking this kind of information. They are extremely enthusiastic about life-long learning and they’re even more excited to research the websites and resources we provide for free.

At HRB, we believe in giving our clients the tools they need to survive in today’s marketplace. For more information about how your company can become indispensable, contact us in our Cedar Rapids office (319.298.0242) or our Davenport office (563.322.0577). We’d be happy to meet with you and discuss the needs/goals of your company, clients and portfolio.

Jeff McEachron
Senior Vice President
Director, Internet Operations

Follow me on Twitter @Jeff_McEachron

Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffmceachron

2392View Comments [8]2010-09-24+15%3A00%3A36Jeff+McEachron

Facing the truth: How Facebook and other social media impact public relations

March 24th, 2010 by Shelby Kraus Categories: Public Relations, Social Media Marketing Tags: hrb, Public Relations, shelby kraus, social media

I read an interesting study today addressing the impact of social media on the practice of public relations. Donald K. Wright, Ph.D., Professor of Public Relations/Director of Development for Boston University and Michelle D. Hinson, M.A., Institute for Public Relations, discovered that in 2009 the tide shifted to where public relations professionals agree more that social media has had a large impact on the practice.

According to the study, An Analysis of the Increasing Impact of Social and Other New Media on Public Relations Practice, 93% of the 2009 respondents spent part of their average workdays with some aspects of social media. In addition:

85% believe social media complement traditional news media.
92% think blogs and social media influence coverage in traditional news media.
88% believe blogs and social media have made communications more instantaneous.
72% agree or strongly believe social media has enhanced the practice of public relations.

The 574 respondents did say that they expect traditional media to be more honest and ethical. Fewer than half (41%) hold these same expectations for blogs and other social media.

Although we see companies slowly adopting and adapting to social media in this region, it has not impacted communications professionals as much as the east and west coast. There are also differences for business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies in the social media arena. B2C professionals will undoubtedly use it more readily.

So, what do you think? Has social media impacted your public relations efforts? If so, I’d like to know how.

Shelby Kraus
Vice President, Public Relations
Account Manager
800-728-2656, ext. 125

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3667View Comments [6]2010-03-24+22%3A49%3A28Shelby+Kraus

PR Best Practices Set Good Example for Social Media Strategy

March 10th, 2010 by Shelby Kraus Categories: Public Relations, Social Media Marketing Tags: henry russell bruce, hrb, pr, Public Relations, shelby kraus, social media

If businesses and marketing managers would approach social media the way public relations professionals approach developing a story and pitching it to editors, they would get a much better return on their investment.

So what do I mean by that? In marketing and advertising you can say whatever you want, however you want, because you’ve paid for the right to do so. In PR, you have to say what the editor wants to hear and ultimately what the reader or viewer wants to hear to get your message across. We use talking points and corporate speak, even though we try to limit that, so we’re not completely “pure.” But we are trying to tell a story and engage the reader in a thoughtful and helpful way. In social media, key messages, blatant boasting (even not-so-blatant boasting) are killers to the conversation.

And that’s what social media is really… a conversation.

No matter who we are, where we work, we all have agendas and topics we are passionate about. We all have opinions. So ultimately, we all have conversations we want to join. If you’ve already figured out why you should be involved with social media, the next step is creating a strategy. Think about the outcome and decide what types of questions you will need to ask yourselves to make that a reality. Some examples:

What types of people would be interested in our conversation?
Where are they at?
What are they talking about?
Is it appropriate for us to join that conversation and, if so, when?
How do we provide value to the conversation?
What is the best way to get their input into our product or service without offending?

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What PR and social media should attempt to do is earn trust. When credible and transparent you can do this. If you think about your social media tendencies and what keeps you following someone or removing them from your friends list, you can create a strategy that is right for your business…and not offensive to potential customers.

Shelby Kraus
Vice President, Public Relations
Account Manager
800-728-2656, ext. 125

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3659View Comments [16]2010-03-10+15%3A46%3A04Shelby+Kraus

Social Media Make Muffins Disappear

March 3rd, 2010 by Shelby Kraus Categories: Public Relations, Social Media Marketing Tags: henry russell bruce, hrb, shelby kraus, social media

As we all learn more about the power of social media we are also learning about the best uses of it. Not every type is right for every business. We’ve seen businesses make mistakes of trying them all on for size and ending up with a mess.

It is just like public relations, advertising or marketing, there are strategies and tactics that work well for certain audiences as well as what you are trying to sell. One of my favorites and one of the most effective social media campaigns is the Intern Hero campaign orchestrated by Little Debbie (a brand of cookie- and cake-based dessert snacks from McKee Foods Corporation headquartered in Collegedale, Tenn.)

Wanting to reach the college demographic, Little Debbie decided to reward our nation’s interns and to promote Little Debbie Muffins. It created a campaign that caught on quickly. The summer of 2009, Little Debbie gave out 200 large sampler boxes of Little Debbie muffins to currently employed interns in the continental United States.

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All they had to do is take a picture of themselves with a sign asking for muffins. Little Debbie put up a Twitter page, Facebook page as well as a blog where they posted these antics.

In the end, “everyone” was talking about it. People were blogging about it. That means people were reading about Little Debbie muffins. And, when you go to the store this week, you just might buy Little Debbie muffins.

The success of this campaign came from the fact that it was simple, targeted, viral, and fun! These are all elements that are needed to make any social campaign a success.

Now, I’ve not tried the muffins, but Little Debbie is a staple at my house. My favorite is the Swiss Cake Rolls – what is your favorite?

Shelby Kraus
Vice President, Public Relations
Account Manager
800-728-2656, ext. 125

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3655Post A CommentSocial+Media+Make+Muffins+Disappear2010-03-04+01%3A07%3A30Shelby+Kraus

Social Media Monitoring: Automate It

March 2nd, 2010 by Jeff McEachron Categories: Social Media Marketing Tags: henry russell bruce, hootsuite, hrb, jeff mceachron, seesmic desktop, seesmic look, social media

Twitter just released a report saying that there are now 50 million tweets every day (600 tweets per second). With such a substantial volume of people messaging each other it’s good to know that there’s tools out there to help you find, monitor, and automate exactly what you’re interested in. There’s tools that range from simple and easy to use to ones that provide a feature-set that is seemingly endless. So let’s start out covering the tools that everyone can jump in and start using before we go into the more advanced managing and monitoring services.

Seesmic Look (Twitter)

Seesmic Look is the latest Twitter application to be released, and is also one of the most interesting. It’s unique focus on making it obvious to the that the information being received is updated “real-time” helps beginning users grasp the concept of the always connected and always up-to-date websites that have been emerging. In addition to it’s new interface, it provides the ability to easily browse other users and popular topics people are talking about. The most useful feature is its search functionality. You can search for a term and Look will give you a list of “tweets” where the term was mentioned. The search term can be saved and easily monitored throughout the day.

Google Alerts has been around for years, but it’s still greatly valuable. Google has been watching social media sites very closely and has been integrating them into search results. One benefit of including social media sites is you can use a Google Alert to send an email to you whenever a certain term is mentioned on the web. This great because these notifications include every result in Google’s massive search index.

Seesmic Desktop (Twitter & Facebook)

What if you’re active on both Twitter and Facebook and require something more real-time than Google Alerts? Surely you don’t want to use separate applications for each website when there’s Seesmic Desktop. With the integration of both Facebook and Twitter, Seesmic Desktop takes the browsing and searching features of Look and makes them more customizable.The multiple column layout might take some time to get used to, but the ability to monitor multiple social media accounts, saved searches, users, and groups of users at all at once is a great time saver.

There’s also Seesmic Web, a website with similar features & functionality but is lacking facebook support.

HootSuite (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, & more)

HootSuite is one of the most robust social media tool available today, and is a publisher’s best friend. It shares the same column view that Seesmic Desktop uses and includes all of the features that the program has to offer. That’s just the start though, because there’s a pretty large feature list. The way it handles accounts is pretty unique, and very useful. They allow you to add “editors” that can access/update your accounts (you choose which accounts each editor has access to). In terms of posting, you have the ability to schedule a tweet/post/etc. and even have it publish out to multiple accounts at once. You can automate your posts by attaching an RSS feed to an account and choosing the behavior of how it’s going to publish new items. Being a publishing tool, they allow you to take any of the columns you create and embed it on a website as a self-contained widget. An important feature that most tools are lacking is the ability to track referrers, click throughs, and other statistics for each of your accounts. HootSuite is highly recommended if you’re taking your social media relations seriously, and are willing to spend the time to learn the tool.

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With out using tools, social media and brand monitoring and be a very expensive and time consuming task. These are a few solutions that will help automate the process, save you time, and save your organization money. In terms of tools, there’s a good chance you’ll find what you’re looking whether you’re a beginner or someone or social media junkie.

Jeff McEachron
Senior Vice President
Director, Internet Operations

Follow me on Twitter @Jeff_McEachron

Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffmceachron

3654View Comments [8]Social+Media+Monitoring%3A+Automate+It2010-03-02+17%3A30%3A43Jeff+McEachron

I’m Tired of Watching Companies Fail at Social Media Marketing

February 22nd, 2010 by Jeff McEachron Categories: Social Media Marketing Tags: hrb, jeff mceachron, research, social media

Over the last couple of years, I have witnessed far too many companies who get started in Social Media and abandon their efforts within a few months because they don’t get the results they were looking for. These companies all have one thing in common. The expectations were unrealistic and they failed to commit the appropriate resources required to be effective.

First, let’s talk about expectations. The president, CEO, and vice president levels of organizations simply don’t know what to expect from social media. As a result and because the down economy is driving a need to get a quick return on investment, they are looking for short-term financial results. For 99% of businesses, this simply isn’t going to happen. Social media marketing is about building a following, building relationships, and leveraging these relationships for long-term mutual gain. If you’re expecting someone to land on your Facebook page and hop straight into your sales funnel, it isn’t going to happen. Here is what you can expect from social media marketing that is well planned and executed:

Increased Sales Efficiency
Improved Reputation
Differentiation
Risk Reduction
Client Retention
Brand Association
Long Term Revenue
Opportunity Creation
Perception Shifting
Public Relations Exposure
Client Education
Network Growth
Building Trust
Innovation

Some companies will look at this list and say, “That’s not what we’re looking for.” If you find yourself in this situation, then ask yourself if this is what your clients or customers are looking for. Like many of our clients, you may have to do some research to figure this out.

If your company decides to move forward with social media marketing, then the next step is critical to your success. You have to allocate and dedicate the appropriate resources to be successful or you will fail. Social media marketing represents a shift in your thinking and potentially a shift in your spending.

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Let’s say you have a marketing budget of $10,000 per month. In the past, you’ve paid an advertising agency this money in exchange for their services. If you’ve made the decision to enter the social media world, you have two choices.

Your first choice would be to pay a company like HRB to manage your blogging and social media efforts. Your second choice would be to keep that work in-house. If you keep that work in-house, I recommend you initially dedicate about 2 to 4 hours per day of someone’s time to manage your blog, social media, and email marketing activities. I would shift some of this money away from and “downsize” your traditional media efforts that have lost effectiveness over time. This allows you keep your costs in check and move into a new avenue of marketing. If you fail to clearly and effectively allocate these resources, your social media efforts will fail.

I think every business can benefit from a well planned and well executed social media strategy. How important is it to your business model, and how much of your marketing budget should be allocated? It varies from company to company, and only you can make the decision on the shape and scope of your efforts. Like all marketing, it is a risk. Unlike a lot of marketing, it is fairly measurable because of the vast statistics available on the Web.

So what’s my advice to you? Do it well, or don’t do it at all. I don’t want to see you fail.

Jeff McEachron
Senior Vice President
Director, Internet Operations

Follow me on Twitter @Jeff_McEachron

Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffmceachron

3650View Comments [5]2010-02-22+22%3A51%3A46Jeff+McEachron

Social Media – Scan the Crowd, Listen, and Speak Directly to Them

February 8th, 2010 by Jeff McEachron Categories: Social Media Marketing Tags: email marketing, henry russell bruce, hrb, jeff mceachron, social media

Last week, I was fortunate enough to present a seminar to the Rotary Club of East Moline/Silvis. The topic was “Getting Started in Social Media.” We had about 60 people in the crowd, including some very young people and some seasoned business veterans.

Before my presentation I had the opportunity to scan the crowd. I was able to listen to some of the conversation and get a feel for the audience. While I was sitting there, I realized that part of my presentation didn’t quite fit the audience. I quickly whipped out my laptop, made a few adjustments, and started my presentation a few minutes later.

There are a couple of points that shouldn’t be lost in what happened that day. First, I scanned the audience and paid attention to the demographics. I listened to them, and I changed my presentation to speak more directly to the crowd. This is exactly what you should do in your social media marketing efforts. Scan the crowd, listen, and speak directly to them.

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This all seems pretty easy and straight forward, right?

Well, if you look at the majority of small to medium sized companies Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, many have something in common. Either they spend a lot of time publishing useless information, or they spend a lot of time talking about themselves and pushing promotions that are based solely on convincing the audience to give up their contact information. Both of these will turn your audience away in short order.

It’s OK to talk about your company once in awhile. It’s OK to offer a promotion to try and build your email marketing list once in awhile. It’s just not OK to make either of these your main focus. You don’t have to listen to me on this, your audience will tell you by choosing not to engage you. Instead, speak directly to your audience. Provide useful information that helps them. If you’re a B2B company, then provide tips and educational articles that will help your audience be better at their job or profession. If you’re a B2C company, then provide information the consumer cares about and needs to know.

If you use the approach I’m recommending, you’ll soon find that your existing relationships will grow stronger and new relationships will begin to form. Once you make a commitment to helping your audience, you will gain their trust and stay top of mind. The next time they need your service or product, it’s much more likely they’ll give you a call.

Scan the crowd, listen, and speak directly to them.

Jeff McEachron
Senior Vice President
Director, Internet Operations

Follow me on Twitter @Jeff_McEachron

Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffmceachron

3641View Comments [13]2010-02-08+10%3A00%3A09Jeff+McEachron